You're right... it's on THIS thread because I said it.
But go look at the hundreds, maybe thousands, of similar threads on this forum and tally how frequently a newcomer/new creator is warned about judging their growth rate versus creators that have been featured in someway or brings a following with them.
And when they ask for help... they're given solid advice but they're correlating it to a different level of success. I'm not implying it's nefarious but without adding a disclaimer... it's contributing to some of the burnout and disappointment in the efforts of some creators.
I'm a big boy, I am ready to grind for this but it was disarming to see a thread asking creators about how fast they reached certain milestones...and uniformly successful creators had either brought an audience with them from elsewhere (or other projects) and/or had been featured. That's not the takeaway I had after a year of reading these forums/threads.
So while I respect the various opinions being articulated, and at the risk of being labeled a "Negative Nancy", I'm just going to continue warning newcomers that the advice being given by folks with thousands of followers comes with a warning label.